One of the great natural phenomena is the way in which a tube of toothpaste suddenly empties itself when it hears that you are pla...nning a trip, so that when you come to pack it is just a twisted shell of its former self, with not even a cubic millimeter left to be squeezed out.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Next we come to the bronchial buster, or the man (it is usually a man) who, being in the throes of a terrific throat and tube trou...ble chooses that night for theater-going.... He will soon learn to pick his pauses with finesse. It does no good to cough while there is a great deal of noise going on on the stage. No one can hear. The time is just as the star is about to do a little low speaking to her dying lover or when the hero, alone in his garret, goes silently over to the fireplace and tears up the letter. There for a good rousing bark, my hearty, followed by a series of short sharp ones like those of a coxswain! If possible the appearance of apoplexy should be simulated.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stationsAnd the conversation rises and slowly fades in...to silenceAnd you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepenLeaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Name me, if you can, a better feeling than the one you get when you've half a bottle of Chivas in the bag with a gram of coke up y...our nose and a teenage lovely pulling off her tube top in the next seat over while you're doing a hundred miles an hour in a suburban side street.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

I am struck by the way people behave on the Tube. They look at each other beadily and inquisitively, and something goes on in thei...r thoughts which must be equivalent to the way dogs and other animals, when they meet, sniff each other's arses and nuzzle each other's fur.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »